Olympiacos faces Olympique de Marseille in the UEFA Europa League on Oct. 15. Here's why Imanol Alguacil's side can beat the French club.
Olympiacos will face Olympique de Marseille in the next matchday of the 2026-27 UEFA Europa League league phase (Oct. 15).
This match is one of many high-caliber games the Greek club will play in this season’s European competition, but there are still reasons to believe Imanol Alguacil’s side can beat the French team.
A little research shows that Marseille is a historic team on the global stage and plays in one of Europe’s top five leagues, Ligue 1.
OM, however, have been unable to find the desired continuity in their sporting project for several years, and year after year they have been overshadowed not only by Paris Saint-Germain but also by other clubs such as RC Lens, LOSC Lille, and AS Monaco.
To put things in context, Marseille are currently 17th in the league table and recently lost the French clásico to PSG, one of the teams in the worst form in recent years.
We are not saying Luis Enrique’s team arrived and played with alternative players and didn't put out their starters, but they were coming off a negative run at the start of this season, even struggling to get their first victory in the French championship.
This is how Marseille’s sporting projects have developed in recent years. It seems that when a new coach arrives and new signings come in, everything gets restructured; they find stability and can compete again at the highest level. And they can string together runs of positive performances, but in the end, the project falls apart.
The management of Olympique de Marseille has been disastrous in recent years in general terms, and spectators of French football consider it more worthwhile to watch other clubs such as the aforementioned ones, or also Olympique Lyon, which, year after year, have managed, despite losing players season after season, to reorganize themselves and remain among the top three big teams in French football, something Marseille has not been able to achieve.
For this match, Marseille undoubtedly arrives with low morale, but also with a clear objective: to collect three points and quickly turn their season around. Doing so at the European level, not only domestically, could be very important for the French side.
However, Imanol Alguacil also arrives with enough motivation to put together a competitive match. He already won his first Europa League match against Jagiellonia, and after the international break and everything that has been worked on during this break, also in Renti, Olympiacos can show interesting things.
Now, with more training sessions under the Basque coach and more opportunities to find the automatisms missing in Alguacil's first matches, things could look different.
If we see Jota Silva, Leon Bailey, Gustavo Sá, Gustavo Puerta, and Remo Freuler connected and cohesive on the pitch, serving balls to Armando 'Hormiga' González, who will surely be the starting striker on merit for this match, it is very likely that we will see a positive result for Olympiacos.
We are not saying it will be easy, but all the ingredients are on the table for Alguacil to use and deliver a good result for the fans.
